[Leica] lurker speaks re: High ISO thread

[davison_m at msn.com (MARK DAVISON)]

Peter,

I think you protest too much.  The claim Leica makes is this, taken from the 
M8 brochure:

"The highest film speed settings of up to
ISO 2500 now allow much more detailed
pictures to be taken than was ever possible
with analog films. As a result, the M8
opens up a new chapter in the history of
available light photography."

It is not a clearly worded claim, but you can see how it might set up the 
expectation that the M8 has superior low-light performance to all existing 
digital cameras.

I myself have witnessed blotchy blue channel noise in the M8 at ISO 1250, 
and strange pattern noise (small horizontal and vertical bars) in RAW files. 
  You do not see these things in ISO 1600 color negative film.  This new 
chapter has more twists and turns than you might expect.

In addition, if you take long exposure (2 to 4 secs) with the lens cap on, 
you will see much more dark-frame noise than you would expect, pointing to a 
deficiency in the dark frame noise subtraction techniques. If you run the 
same experiment with a Nikon D200 with long exposure noise reduction 
enabled, you get no visible noise at all!

I look forward to the return of my M8 from Solms so I can investigate how 
the new and improved M8 performs at high ISO.

Mark Davison



>From: Peter Klein <pklein@2alpha.net>
>Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
>To: lug@leica-users.org
>Subject: Re: [Leica] lurker speaks re: High ISO thread
>Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 15:50:42 -0800
>
>Leica never said any such thing.  But there is a body of Internet noise out 
>there, to the effect that unless the M8 was significantly superior to the 
>5D or IDS Mk II in all aspects, especially ISO 1600 and 3200 noise 
>performance, that the M8 and Leica did not deserve to exist, and should 
>deservedly go down in flames to the derision of digiterati everywhere.
>
>If this is the case, why are Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Sony, etc. allowed to 
>exist?
>
>The whole idea is, quite frankly, bovine effluent. It's a combination of 
>anti-Leica reverse-elitism and the hegemony of Canon marketing.  Whether 
>the M8 is suitable for one's style of photography or too expensive for your 
>budget is another matter.  But a rangefinder is not an SLR, the Canon look 
>is not the be-all and end-all of aesthetics, and a camera optimized for 
>resolution with a body of existing, wonderful optics deserves better than 
>it's been getting in some quarters.
>
>If the M8 were being marketed as an all-around picture-taking tool for the 
>masses, such comparisons might carry a bit more weight.  But there are 
>reasons to take a small, light, nimble camera with fast lenses that focus 
>where *you* tell them to, over much bigger, heavier, (acoustically) noisier 
>machines that don't do wide angles so well.
>
>Canons are fine machines.  So is the M8, for different reasons.  If people 
>want to talk about the relative merits of various design choices with 
>respect to various kinds of photography, fine.  But this "Leica should die 
>because the 5D has less noise at ISO 3200" is just plain dumb.
>
>--Peter
>
>>As far as I know Leica made no such claim.  I think this was a wish of 
>>some one hee ar on another list.
>>
>>Gene
>>
>>
>>-------------- Original message from "Robert Jagitsch" 
>><robert.jagitsch@gmail.com>: --------------
>>
>>
>> > Lastly, I would like to see where the factory claimed that ISO 2500
>> > performance would be equal to Canon 5D performance at ISO 3200. What
>> > did the factory claim, can someone point me to it?
>
>
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